Kit Envy

Kit Envy

Do you love kit clubs? There are so many wonderful and inspiring ones out there. They have an eclectic and interesting mix of products, and their creative styles vary widely, so you can usually find a kit club that works for how you create pages.

Generally, there are two types of kit clubs: ones that stick to one or two product lines while assembling the kit, and those who mix and match multiple product lines and manufacturers, and sometimes even design their own product.

A couple examples of single line kit clubs would be ones like the Kit Terrific Club from my local store Captured Moments, or the monthly kits  created by Little Red Scrapbook.

Sample of typical kit club supplies from Captured Moments

Sample of typical kit club supplies from Captured Moments

Sep2013---Main-Kit-Ani

Sample of kit from Little Red Scrapbook

These are great examples of how you can pull together patterns from a single manufacturer and make them play nicely together. One of the benefits of the Kit Terrific Club are the cutting directions and visual samples they put up on their blog to show members how to assemble pages and use all the parts of each kit.

Sample page from Captured Moments

Sample page from Captured Moments

Gossamer Blue and Studio Calico are two companies that do the manufacturer mixing style really well. Studio Calico has become the gold standard against which most kit clubs compare themselves, while Gossamer Blue is just a year old, and full of fresh ideas.

Studio Calico sample kit

Studio Calico sample kit

Gossamer Blue sample kit

Gossamer Blue sample kit

One of the fun things about both these companies, is that they usually have a unique stamp available, either in the main kit, or in an add on. I love being able to add stamped images and techniques to my pages, so that’s a great bonus.

I LOVE kit clubs. They are full of ideas and product you wouldn’t necessarily use together. But they can be expensive, especially if you still go out and buy more supplies on top of your monthly kit fees. Be honest. Who doesn’t do that?

There are some options for you. You don’t have to buy each and every month’s kit or sign up for a six month subscription. Most kit clubs offer an option to purchase a single kit at a time for slightly more money.

You could also do what the lovely ladies over at Counterfeit Kit Challenge do. Each month they find a kit to use as inspiration, and then their members create their own kits with the product they have on hand. That’s  a fun way to use up your stash, and they always have goods ideas for ways to adapt what you have to create something similar to what you want.

Not sure how to put together your own kit, or how to use it ALL up? We’ll be talking about that a lot more over the next few weeks, so be sure to pop back in, or sign up for my newsletter, so you can get notified when new posts are up.

In the meantime, do you have a favorite kit club? Give them a shout out here. I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s looking for new kits and ideas.